BARS AND 
SHADOWS 



THE PRISON POEMS 

OF 

Ralph Chaplin 








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I 

Bars and Shadows 

THE PRISON POEMS OF 

RALPH CHAPLIN^ 



/ 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
by 

SCOTT NEARING 



THE LEONARD PRESS 
NEW YORK CITY 



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Copyright 1922 by 
EDITH M, CHAPLIN 

[Lombard) 

Illinois 



46 



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I?AI^PH CHAPLIN 



CONTENTS 

Introduction, 5 

Mourn Not the Dead, 13 

Taps, 14 

Night in the Cell House, 15 

Prison Shadows, 16 

Prison Reveille, 1 7 

Prison Nocturne, 18 

The Warrior Wind, 19 

To Freedom, 21 

The Vision Maker, 22 

Distances, 23 

Phantoms, 24 

Seven Little Sparrows, 25 

Sallam!, 26 

The West is Dead, 29 

Up From Your Knees!, 30 

The Eunuch, 31 

L W. W. Prison Song, 33 

To France, 34 

ViLLANELLE, 35 

Wesley Everest, 36 

The Industrial Heretics, 37 

Blood and Wine, 38 

The Red Guard, 40 

The Red Feast, 41 

The Girls Who Sang for Us, 43 

To Edith, 44 

Song of Separation, 45 

To my Little Son, 46 

Escaped!, 47 

Retrospect, 48 



INTRODUCTION 
I. 

Ralph Chaplin is serving a twenty year sentence in the 
Federal Penitentiary, not as a punishment for any act of 
violence against person or property, but solely for the ex- 
pression of his opinions. 

Chaplin, together with a number of fellow prisoners 
who were sentenced at the same time, was accused of taking 
part in a conspiracy with intent to obstruct the prosecution 
of the war. To be sure the Government did not produce a 
single witness to show that the war had been obstructed by 
their activities; but it was argued that the agitation which 
they had carried on by means of speeches, articles, pamphlets, 
meetings and organizing campaigns, would quite naturally 
hamper the country in its war work. On the face of their 
indictments these men were accused of interfering with the 
conduct of the war; in reality there were sent to jail because 
they held and expressed certain beliefs. 

As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, 
Ralph Chaplin did his part to make the organization a suc- 
cess. He wrote songs and poems; he made speeches; he 
edited the official paper, "Solidarity". He looked about him; 
saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the work- 
ers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the 
land and the machinery of production; studied the problem 
of distribution; and decided that it was possible, through the 
organization of the producers, to establish a more scientific, 
juster, more humane system of society. All this he felt, 
intensely. With him and his fellow- workers the task of free- 
ing humanity from economic bondage took on the aspect of 
a faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote their 
literature; made their speeches and sang their songs with 
zealous devotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard a 
call to duty; they were giving their lives to a cause — the 
emancipation of the human race. 

When the war broke out in Europe, with millions of 
working-men flinging death and misery at one another, men 
like Chaplin, the world over, regarded it as the last straw. 
Was it not bad enough that these exploited creatures should 
be used as factory-fodder? Must they be cannon-fodder 
too? Why should they fight to increase the economic power 
of German traders ? of British manufacturers ? The war was 
a capitalist war between capitalist nations. What interest 
had the workers in these nations? in their winnings or in 
their losses ? So ran the argument. 



The I. W. W. was not primarily an anti-war organization. 
In theory it had abandoned political activity to devote itself 
exclusively to agitation and organization on the field of in- 
dustry. Practically its funds and its energies were expended 
upon industrial struggles. Long before the war, the I. W. W. 
had made itself known and feared for its conduct of strikes; 
its free speech fights, and its ability to put the sore spots of 
American industrial life on the front page of the daily press 
and to keep them there until the people had become aroused 
to the wrongs that were being perpetrated. It was in the 
domain of industry that the I. W. W. was functioning, and 
it was among the business interests that the determination 
had been reached to rid the country of the organization at 
all costs. 

Had the chief offense of the I. W. W. consisted in its 
expressed opposition to the war, it would not have been 
singled out for attack. Many of the peace societies that 
flourished prior to 1917 were more outspoken and more con- 
sistent in their opposition to war than were the leaders of the 
I. W. W. None of these societies, however, had acquired a 
reputation for championing the cause of industrial under- 
dogs, and for demanding a complete change in the form of 
American economic life. Consequently, in the prosecutions, 
in the sentences, in the commutations and in the pardons, 
the anti-war pacifists were treated very leniently, while the 
revolutionary I. W. W. members were singled out for the 
most ferocious legal and extra-legal attack. 

Technically, Ralph Chaplin and his comrades had con- 
spired to obstruct the war. Actually, they had lined them- 
selves up solidly against the present economic order, of which 
the World War was only one phase. This was their real 
crime. 

II. 

Ralph Chaplin was guilty of the most serious social 
ofFense that a man can commit. While living in an old and 
shattered social order, he had championed a new order of 
society and had expounded a new culture. Socrates and 
Jesus, for like offenses, lost their lives. Thousands of their 
followers, guilty of no greater crime than that of denouncing 
vested wrong and expounding new truths, have suffered in the 
dungeon, on the scaffold and at the stake. 

Not because he and his fellows conspired to obstruct the 
war, but because they denounced the present order of eco- 
nomic society and taught the inauguration of a better one, 
are they still held in prison more than three years after the 
signing of the armistice; after the proclamation of peace 
and the resumption of trade with all of the enemy countries; 



after the repeal or the lapse of the Espionage Act and the 
other war-time laws under which they were convicted; and 
after German agents and German spies, caught red-handed 
in their attempts to interfere with the prosecution of the 
war, have won their freedom through presidential pardon. 

The most dangerous men in the United States, during 
the years 1917 and 1918, were not those who were taking 
pay to do the will of the German or the Austrian Govern- 
ments, but those who were trying to convince the American 
working people that they should throw aside a system of 
economic parasitism and economic exploitation, should take 
possession of the machinery of production and should secure 
for themselves the product of their own toil. In the eyes of 
the masters of American life, such men are still dangerous, 
and tkat is the reason that they are kept in prison. 

III. 

The culture of any age consists of the feelings, habits, 
customs, activities, thoughts, ambitions and dreams of a 
people. It is a composite picture of their homes, their work, 
their arts, their pleasures and the other channels of their 
life-expression. 

The culture of each age has two aspects. On the one 
hand there is the established or accepted culture of those who 
dominate and control, — the culture of the leisure or ruling 
class. This culture is respected, admired, applauded, and 
sometimes even worshipped by those who benefit from it most 
directly. Civilization — even life itself seems bound up with 
its continuance. When the advocates of the established cul- 
ture cry "Long live the King!" they are really shouting ap- 
proval of royalty, aristocracy, landlordism, vassalage, ex- 
ploitation and of all the other attributes of divine right. The 
world as it is becomes in their minds, synonymous with the 
world as it should be. For them the old culture is the best 
culture. 

On the other hand there is the new culture, comprising 
the hopes, beliefs, ideas and ideals of those who feel that 
the present is but a transition-stage, leading from the past 
into the future — a future that they see radiant with the best 
that is in man, developing soundly against the bounties that 
are supplied by the hand of nature. These forward looking 
ones, impatient with the mistakes and injustices of to-day, 
preach wisdom and justice for the morrow. So imperfect does 
the present seem to them, and so obvious are the possibilities 
of the future, that they look forward confidently to the 
overthow of the old social forms, and the establishment, in 
their places, of a new society, the embryo of which is already 
germinating within the old social shell. 

The old culture relies on tradition, custom and the nor- 
mal conservatism of the masses of mankind The new cul- 



ture relies on concepts of justice, truth, liberty, love, brother- 
hood. Eighteenth century, Feudal France was filled with the 
prophecies of a form of society that would supplant Feudal- 
ism. Nineteenth century Russia, in the grip of a capitalist 
burocracy, proved to be the centre for the revolutions of the 
early twentieth century. The new culture, growing at first 
under the shadow of the old, gradually assumes larger and 
larger proportions until it takes all of the sunlight for itself, 
throwing the old culture into the shadow of oblivion. 

Each ruling class knows these facts, — ^knows that the 
old must give place to the new; knows that the living, ruling 
culture of to-day will be the history of the day after to- 
morrow, yet because of the vested interests which they rely 
upon for their power, and because they are satisfied to have 
the deluge come after them, they oppose each manifestation 
of the new culture and strain every nerve to make the tem- 
porary organization of the world permanent. The more 
vigorously the new culture thrives, the more eagerly do the 
representatives of the old order strive to destroy it. 

IV. 

During three eventful centuries, the part of North Amer- 
ica that is now the United States has witnessed two fierce 
culture-survival struggles. In the first of these struggles — 
that between the American Indians and the whites, the cul- 
ture of Western Europe supplanted the culture of primitive 
America. In the second struggle — that between the slave 
holders of the South and the rising business interests of the 
North, the slave oligarchy was swept from power, and in its 
place there was established the new financial imperialism 
that dominates the public life of the nation at the present 
time. Despite the extreme youth of the capitalist system in 
the United States, there are already many signs that those 
who profit by it must be prepared to defend it at no distant 
date. The Russian Revolution of 1917 sounded the loudest 
note of warning, but even before that occurred, the indus- 
trial capitalists had entered upon a struggle which they 
believed to be of the greatest importance to their future. 

During the twenty years that elapsed between the 
Homestead and Pullman strikes and the beginning of the 
world war, the pages of American industrial history are 
crowded with stories of the labor conflict — on an ever vaster 
and vaster scale, between nationally organized employers, 
using the power of the police, the courts and, where necessary, 
the army; and the nationally organized workers, backed by 
some show of public sentiment, and armed with the strength 
of numbers. Although the bulk of the workers was still 
unorganized, and although those who were organized thought 
and acted within the lines of their crafts, considering them- 



selves as railway trainmen or as carpenters first, and as 
workers afterward, there was not wanting a new spirit — 
sometimes called the spirit of industrial unionism — emphasiz- 
ing labor solidarity and speaking most loudly through the 
propaganda, first of the Socialist Labor Party and later of 
the I. W. W. 

The old culture was joining battle with the new. "Amer- 
ica is the land of opportunity. It was good enough for my 
father: it is good enough for me" was the slogan of the 
capitalists. "The world for the workers," answered the 
vanguard of the exploited masses. 

The advocate of a labor state is as unpopular in a cap- 
italist society as the abolitionist was in the Carolinas be- 
fore the Civil War. He sees a vision that the stalwarts of 
the existing order do not care to see; he speaks a language 
that they cannot comprehend; he represents an interest that 
is as hateful to them as it is alien to their privileges. 



At the outset, while the old order is still relatively strong, 
and the new relatively weak, the spokesmen of the old order 
can afford to ignore the champions of the new. But as the 
established order grows more senile and the new order more 
vigorous, the defenders of the old order, by force or by guile, 
set themselves to root out the new, even though they should 
be compelled to destroy themselves in the process. Then 
there ensues a savage struggle in which wits are matched 
against wits and force agains force. Families are divided; 
the community is split into factions; civil war rages; society 
is torn to its foundations. At times the struggle reaches the 
military phase, but for the most part it instills itself into 
the lives of the people until it becomes an accepted part of 
the day's work. 

Then it is that the real test comes between the old world 
and the new. The old world holds power — economic, social, 
political. It holds in its hands income, respectability and 
preferment, with which it seeks first to buy, and later to 
destroy all who oppose its will., 

Buying is the easiest, the safest, and in the long run the 
cheapest method of gaining the desired end. 

Each generation contains some men and women pos- 
sessed of unusual endowments — as organizers and enter- 
prisers, as spokesmen, as singers, as seers and prophets. 
These gifted ones the old order sets out to win — lavishing 
upon them gratitudes, favors, rewards; filling their lives out 
of the horn of economic and social plenty; teasing their 
vanities and gratifying their ambitions; soothing, cajoling, 
flattering. By these means the rulers succeed in bringing 
under their control the strong thinkers, the capable execu- 

9 



tives, the sensitive, the talented — all in fact who are worth 
buying, and who can be bought for income and for social 
preferment, even though they may have been born into the 
families of the humblest and most oppressed of the workers. 

Most men and women go where income promises and 
social preferment beckons. But not all! There are some 
whose love of justice, truth and beauty; whose yearning for 
betterment and increased social opportunity, outweighs the 
tempting bait of ease and respectability. Them the estab- 
lished order smites. 

The strength of the old order is measured superficially 
by the extent of its control over the means of common live- 
lihood and by the generalness of the satisfaction or discon- 
tent with which the masses receive its administration. Fun- 
damentally its strength is determined by the direction in 
which its life is tending. The structure of the Roman Em- 
pire was apparently sound before it buckled and disin- 
tegrated. The French aristocracy was never surer of itself 
than in the gala days that preceded 1789. The old order 
may undergo a process of gradual transformation. In that 
case the change is slow, as it was when Feudalism gave place 
to Capitalism in England. Again, the old order may be 
exterminated as it was when Feudalism gave place to Cap- 
italism in France. In one case the masters of life loosen 
the reins of power to ease the straining team; in the other 
case the masters hold the reins taut till they are jerked 
from their hands, as masters and team go together over the 
precipice. 

The strength of the new order, at any stage in its de- 
velopment may be gauged by the solidarity of its organiza- 
tion, the efficacy of its propaganda, and the tone of its art. 
These forms of expression are necessary to the maintenance 
of any phase of culture, old or new, and by the last of the 
three, the esthetic expression of the culture, its morale may 
best be judged. It is for this reason that artists, musicians, 
dramatists and poets are so important a part of any order of 
society. They voice its deepest sentiments and express its 
most sacred faiths and longings. When the time arrives that 
a new social order can boast its permanent art and music and 
literature, it is already far advanced on the path that leads 
to stability and power. 

VI. 

The poems which appear in this volume are a contribu- 
tion to the propaganda and the art of the new culture. 
"Above all things," writes Chaplin, "I don't want anyone to 
try to make me out a *poet' — because I'm not. I don't think 
much of these esthetic creatures who condescend to stoop to 
our level that we may have the blessings of culture. We'll 

10 



manage to make our own — do it in our own way, and stagger 
through somehow. . . . These are tremendous times, 
and sooner or later someone will come along big enough to 
sound the right note, and it will be a rebel note." It is that 
note which Chaplin has sought to strike, and that he has 
succeeded will be the verdict of anyone who has read over 
the poems. 

Chaplin's work speaks for itself. Some of the poems 
were written in Leavenworth Prison and published in the 
prison paper. Others were written during the tedious months 
of the Chicago trial, when the men were kept in the Cook 
County jail. Chaplin has had ample time to work them out. 
Christmas, 1921, was the fifth consecutive Christmas that he 
has spent in prison. The poems bear the impress of the bars, 
but they ring with the glad vigor of a free spirit that bars 
cannot contain. 

The reader of Chaplin's prison poems unavoidably makes 
three mental comments: 

1. When poems so reserved, so vigorous; so penetrat- 
ing, so melodious, so beautiful, come from behind 
jail bars, it is high time that thinking men and 
women awoke to the fate that awaits bold dreamers 
and singers under the present order in the United 
States. 

2. Men are not silenced when steel doors clang behind 
them. Free spirits are as free behind the bars as 
they are under the open sky. The jail, as a gag, is 
impotent. While it may master the body, it cannot 
contain the soul. 

3. The new order in America is already finding its 
voice. Although it is so young, and so immature, it 
is speaking with an accent of gifted authority. 

Chaplin is not a dangerous man — except as his ideas are 
dangerous to the existing order of society. His presence in 
the penitentiary, under a twenty year sentence, indicates how 
dangerous those ideas are considered by the masters of 
American public life. Rich those masters are — ^fabulously 
rich; and strong they may be, yet so insecure do they feel 
themselves that they are constrained to hold in prison this 
dreamer and singer of the new social order. 

Chaplin, in prison, like Debs in prison, is doing his work. 
He is resisting the encroachments of those jail demons — 
hate, bitterness, revenge; he is holding his mind on the goal — 
a newer, better social order; he is keeping his vision of 
nature, of humanity, of brotherhood, of courage, of love, of 
beauty, — clear and bright. Chaplin, the man, is in jail; but 
Chaplin the poet and singer is roaming wherever books go; 
wherever papers are read, and wherever comrades repeat 
verses to one another in the flickering light of the evening 
fire. 

11 



MOURN NOT THE DEAD 



Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth 

lie- 
Dust unto dust — 
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who 

die 
As all men must ; 

Mourn not your captive comrades who must 
dwell — 

Too strong to strive — 
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell, 

Buried alive ; 

But rather mourn the apathetic throng — 

The cowed and the meek — 

Who see the world's great anguish and its 

wrong 
And dare not speak ! 



13 



TAPS 



The day is ended! Ghostly shadows creep 
Along each dim-lit wall and corridor. 
The bugle sounds as from some faery shore 

Silvered with sadness, somnolent and deep. 

Darkness and bars . . . God! shall we 
curse or weep ? 

Somewhere a pipe is tapped upon the floor; 

A guard slams shut the heavy iron door ; 

The day is ended — go to sleep — to sleep. 

Three times it blows — weird lullaby of 

doom — 
And then to dream while fecund Night gives 

birth 
To other days like this day that is done . . 
But Morning . . . does it live beyond 

the gloom — 
This deep black pall that hangs above the 

earth — 
He fears the dark who dares to doubt the sun ! 



14 



NIGHT IN THE CELL HOUSE 



Tier over tier they rise to dizzy height — 
The cells of men who know the world no more. 
Silence intense from ceiling to the floor; 
While through the window gleams a lone blue 

light 
Which stabs the dark immensity of night. 
Felt shod and ghostly like a shade of yore, 
The guard comes shuffling down the corridor ; 
His key-ring jingles . . . and he glides 

from sight. 

Oh, to forget the prison and its scars, 

And face the breeze where ocean meets the 

land; 
To watch the foam-crests dance with silver 

stars, 
While long green waves come tumbling on the 

sand • . . 
My brow is hot against the icy bars ; 
There is the smell of iron on my hand. 



15 



PRISON SHADOWS 



Like grey-winged phantoms out of sullen 

skies 
They flood our cells and seem to fashion 

there 
I know not what dim landscapes of despair ; 
All day we feel them lurking in our eyes. 
At night they fall like crosses, sombre-wise, 
Upon the shameful uniforms we wear, 
Upon the brow, the face, the hand, the hair ; 
And on each heart their shadow always lies. 

O heart of mine, why throb with futile rage 
And beat and beat against these hopeless 

bars? 
For, though you break in life's last deadly 

swoon. 
You cannot pierce beyond this iron cage 
To see the pulsing splendor of the stars 
Or feel the blue-green magic of the moon! 



16 



PRISON REVEILLE 



Out through the iron doorway, bolted strong, 
I see the night guard's shadow on the wall. 
The bugle sounds its thin, white silver call. 
Awake! awake! O world-forgotten throng! 
An then the sudden clanging of the gong, 
And . . • silence . . • aching silence 

. . . over all; 
While through the windows, steel-barred, 

stern and tall. 
Pale daylight greets us like a plaintive song. 

Somewhere the dawn breaks laughing o'er 

the sea 
To splash with gold the cities' domes and 

towers. 
And countless men seek visions wide and 

free, 
In that alluring world that is not ours ; 
But no one there could prize as much as we 
The open road, the smell of grass and flowers. 



17 



PRISON NOCTURNE 



Outside the storm is swishing to and fro ; 
The wet wind hums its colorless refrain ; 
Against the walls and dripping bars, the rain 
Beats with a rhythm like a song of woe; 
Dimmed by the lightning's ever-fitful glow 
The purple arc-lamps blur each streaming 

pane; 
The thunder rumbles at the distant plain, 
The cells are hushed and silent, row on row. 

Pall, fruitful drops, upon the parching earth, 
Fall, and revive the living sap of spring ; 
Blossom the fields with wonder once again ! 
And, in all hearts, awaken to new birth 
Those visions and endeavors that will bring 
A fresh, sweet morning to the world of men! 



18 



THE WARRIOR WIND 



Once more the wind leaps from the sullen land 

With his old battle-cry, 

A tree bends darkly where the wall looms 
high; 
Its tortured branches, like a grisly hand. 

Clutch at the sky. 

Grey towers rise from gloom and under- 
neath — 
Black-barred and strong — 
The snarling windows guard their ancient 
wrong ; 
But the mad wind shakes them, hissing 
through his teeth 
A battle song. 

bitter is the challenge that he flings 

At bars and bolts and keys. 

Torn with the cries of vanished centuries 
And curses hurled at long-forgotten kings 

Beyond dim seas. 

The wind alone, of all the gods of oia, 

Men could not chain. 

O wild wind, brother to my wrath and pain, 
Like you, within a restless heart I hold 

A hurricane. 

The wind has known the dungeons of the past 

Knows all that are ; 

And in due time will strew their dust afar, 
And singing, he will shout their doom at last 

To a laughing star. 



19 



O cleansing warrior wind, stronger than 
death, 
Wiser than men may know; 
smite these stubborn walls and lay them 
low, 
Uproot and rend them with your mighty 
breath — 
Blow, wild wind, blow ! 



39 



TO FREEDOM 



Out on the ''lookout" in the wind and sleet, 
Out in the woods of fir and spruce and pine, 
Down in the hot slopes of the dripping mine 
We dreamed of you and Oh, the dream was 

sweet ! 
And now you bless the felon food we eat 
And make each iron cell a sacred shrine ; 
For when your love thrills in the blood like 

wine. 
The very stones grow holy to our feet. 

We shall be faithful though we march with 

Death 
And singing storm the barricades of Wrong, 
For life is such a little thing to give. 
We shall fight on as long as we have breath- 
Love in our hearts and on our lips a song— 
Without you it were better not to live ! 



THE VISION MAKER 

To EUGENE VICTOR DEBS 



Christ-like he spoke. While angry cannon 

roared, 
His vision tinged the torn and bleeding skies, 
Men heard in him their own dumb anguished 

cries, 
The heavens seemed to open at his word. 
Give us a victim, shouted Caesar's horde. 
From his black pyre red warnings shall arise. 
The vision perishes, the prophet dies . . . 
His truth is far more deadly than our sword ! 

And deadlier his dream — a quenchless flame. 
For which no dungeon fastness can be 

built . . . 
You have but made the convict half divine, 
Crowned Truth with martyrdom, yourselves 

with shame; 
Not he, but you are branded deep with guilt ; 
His cell is holier than your highest shrine. 



22 



DISTANCES 



Above the moist earth, tremulous and bright. 
The stars creep forth — stars that I cannot 

see; 
And to my cell steals, oh, so tenderly 
The dewy fragrance of a summer night ! 
All wan and wistful, somewhere out of sight, 
Stalking o'er landscapes wide and dark and 

free. 
My friend, the moon, looks everywhere for 

me. 
Splashing the paths I loved with silver light. 

Oh loveliness ! why do you torture so 
With such keen beauty till the day ap- 
pears ? 
Why touch to life things buried long ago, 
Whose aching cries trouble the heart to 

tears ; 
Ghostly — like wind tossed sea gulls calling 

low 
Out of the poignant vistas of the years ? 



23 



PHANTOMS 



Ghost of a mountain 
And ghost of a moon ; 

Night birds sink droopingly 
Over the dune 

Clouds drifting hazily 
Stars blurring through; 

Darkness come close to me — 
Darkness and you. 

Mist on the water 
And mist in the sky; 

Netted with silver 
The waves ripple by. 

Ghost of a solitude 

Lit with dead stars. 
You have your memories 

I have my bars! 



24 



SEVEN LITTLE SPARROWS 



Beyond the deep-cut window 

The bars are heaped with snow, 

And seven little sparrows 
Are sitting in a row. 

Fluffy blur of snowflakes ; 

Dappled haze of light ; 
The narrow prison vista 

Is all awhirl with white. 

Seven little sparrows 

Ruffled brown and grey 
Snuggled close against the bars — 

And this is Christmas day! 



25 



SALAAM! 



Serene, complacent, satisfied. 

Content with things that be; 
The paragon of paltriness 

Upraised for all to see; 
With loving pride he cherishes 

His mediocrity! 

The smirking, ass-like multitudes 
Cringe down at his command. 

With wagging ears and blinded eyes 
They do not understand. 

With pride they show each shackled wrist 
And on each brow the brand. 

The young, the old, the great, the small 

Give homage — all supine. 
Fond parents bring their children there 

As to some holy shrine. 
And every one the Beast transf ormg 

From human into swine! 

Well praised are they — rewarded well — 

Who on their shoulders bore 
The gilded Thing that all the mob 

Fawned in the dust before. 
And each that did obeisance there 

Was naked like a whore. 

The poet with his teeming song, 

The wise his deep-delved lore. 
The maiden with her tender flesh, 

The strong his sturdy store : 
Each yielded all he had to give ; 

No harlot could do more. 



26 



Is there not one to share with me 
The shame and wrath I own ? 

Is there not one to curse that Thing 
Or pick up stones to stone — 

To rend and wreck and raze to earth — 
Or do I stand alone ? 

Raise high the swine-Uke incubus, 

Obediently bow! 
Shatter the flame on rebel lips 

And wreath that brazen brow ! 
So blaze the banners, ring the bells. 

Apotheosis now! 

My kind but scorn your dull "success"- 

Your subtle ways to "win/* 
We eat our hearts in solitude 

Or sear our souls with "sin" ; 
Yet we are better men than you 

Who fit so smugly in. 

Go ! grovel for the shoddy goods 
And plod and plot and plan, 

And if you win the paltry prize 
Go prize it — if you can. 

But I would hurl it in your face 
To hold myself a man ! 

I will not bow with that mad horde 

And passively obey. 
I will not think their sordid thoughts 

Nor say the things they say, 
Nor wear their shameful uniforms. 

Nor branded be as they. 



27 



Nor can they bend me to their will 
Though black their numbers swell, 

Nor bribe with hopes of paradise 
Nor force with fears of hell ; 

Me they may break but never bend, — 
I live but to rebel ! 

I go my way rejoicingly, 

I, outcast, spurned and low. 
But undreamed worlds may come to birth 

From seeds that I may sow. 
And if there's pain within my heart 

Those fools shall never know. 

So let me stand back silently. 

The pageant passes by. 
And live my life with these new Christs 

Whom you would crucify. 
And laugh with mirth to see the mob 

Do homage to a Lie ! 



28 



THE WEST IS DEAD 



What path is left for you to tread 

When hunger-wolves are slinking near- 
Do you not know the West is dead? 

The ''blanket-stiff" now packs his bed 

Along the trails of yesteryear — 
What path is left for you to tread ? 

Your fathers, golden sunsets led 

To virgin prairies wide and clear — 
Do you not know the West is dead ? 

Now dismal cities rise instead 

And freedom is not there nor here — 
What path is left for you to tread ? 

Your fathers' world, for which they bled, 

Is fenced and settled far and near — 
Do you not know the West is dead? 

Your fathers gained a crust of bread, 
Their bones bleach on the lost frontier; 

What path is left for you to tread — 
Do you not know the West is dead? 



29 



UP FROM YOUR KNEES 

(Air: ''Song of a Thousand Years'') 



Up from your knees, ye cringing serf men ! 

What have ye gained by whines and tears ? 
Rise ! They can never break our spirits 

Though they should try a thousand years. 

CHORUS 

A thousand years, then speed the victory ! 

Nothing can stop us nor dismay. 
After the winter comes the springtime; 

After the darkness comes the day. 

Break ye your chains, strike off your fetters ; 

Beat them to swords, the Foe appears. 
Slaves of the world arise and crush him — 

Crush him or serve a thousand years. 

Join in the fight — ^the Final Battle, 
Welcome the fray with ringing cheers. 

These are the times our fathers dreamed of, 
Fought to attain a thousand years. 

Be ye prepared, be not unworthy, 

Greater the task when triumph nears. 

Master the earth, men of labor ; 

Long have ye learned — a thousand years. 

Out of the East the sun is rising. 
Out of the night the day appears ; 

See! at your feet the world is waiting, 
Bought with your blood a thousand years. 



30 



THE EUNUCH 

{To those who fight on the side of the Powers of 
Darkness) 



Once a Eunuch by the palace 
In the sunset's fading glow 
Felt the soft warm breezes blow; 

Watched the fair girls of the Harem 
Idly saunter to and fro. 

Saw he beauty young and lavish — 
Fierce to lure man's every sense — 
(Grim the Eunuch stood and tense) 

Laughingly the sparkling fountain 
Mocked his bleak incompetence. 

Came the Sultan from his hunting 
Flaming with the zest of life ; 
(Laid aside were spear and knife) 

Came for wine and song and feasting, 
Came to seek his fairest wife. 

Opened then the marble portals. 
Fragrant incense filled the air, 
(Sandalwood and roses rare) 

While the girls with red-lipped languor 
Scattered flowers everywhere. 

Far away the fabled mountains, 
(Like some paradise of old) 
Glowed with lavender and gold. 

Tense the Eunuch stood and silent— 
Tense and sullen, tense and cold. 



31 



Now a quick impotent fury- 
Lashed him Hke a bronze-tipped cord. 
Sprang he at the youthful lord, 

Sprang again with blade all bloody. . . 
(Famished lust and dripping sword.) 



Night crept on all chill and ghastly, 
Jackals trotted forth to bark, 
(Murder shuddered, still and stark . 

By the palace ceased the fountain 

And the whole grey world grew dark. 



32 



I. W. W. PRISON SONG 

{Tune: ''The Red Flag") 



The pale and dismal daylight falls 
Through iron bars on prison walls. 
In chains we came from far and near, 
And in dark cells they hold us here. 

CHORUS 

Defiant 'neath the Iron Heel ; 
Their walls of stone and bars of steel 1 
For though all hell at us is hurled, 
We and our kind shall rule the world ! 

At us the blood-hounds are let loose, 
The lynch-mobs with the knotted noose ; 
In legal sanctioned mask and gown 
The New Black Hundreds hunt us down. 

To all brave comrades o'er the sea, 
In chains for human liberty, 
And all jailed rebels everywhere 
We say: be bold to do and dare! 

By all the graves of Labor's dead, 
By Labor's deathless flag of red. 
We make a solemn vow to you, — 
We'll keep the faith ; we will be true. 

For Freedom laughs at prison bars 
Her voice re-echoes from the stars ; 
Proclaiming with the tempest's breath 
A Cause beyond the reach of death ! 



38 



TO FRANCE 

{May Day, 1919) 



Mother of revolutions, stern and sweet, 
Thou of the red Commune's heroic days ; 
Unsheathe thy sword, let thy pent lightning 

blaze 
Until these new bastiles fall at thy feet. 
Once more thy sons march down the ancient 

street 
Led by pale men from silent Pere la Chaise; 
Onc^ more La Carmignole — La Marseillaise 
Blend with the war drum's quick and angry 

beat. 

Ah, France — our — France — must they again 

endure 
The crown of thorns upon the cross of death? 
Is morning here . . . ? Then speak that we 

may know! 
The sky seems lighter but we are not sure. 
Is morning here . . . ? The whole world 

holds its breath 
To hear the crimson Gallic rooster crow! 



34 



VILLANELLE 

{Torquato Tasso from his cell at Ste. Anne, 1548) 



Her beauty haunts me everywhere — 

A lone lark singing as it flies — 
Sweet, sweet beyond compare. 

Amber and gold meet in her hair, 

Dark pools and starlight in her eyes ; 
Her beauty haunts me everywhere. 

Slim body, petal soft and fair. 

Cool lips, cool, cool as evening skies — 
Sweet, O sweet beyond compare. 

Pale fingers delicate and rare. 

To lull and lure caressing- wise ; 
Her beauty haunts me everywhere. 

Here in my dungeon dim and bare 

The last frail not of music dies — 
Sweet, sweet beyond compare. 

My heart ? I steeled it not to care .... 

But God ! her love is paradise ! 
Her beauty haunts me everywhere, 
O sweet, sweet, sweet beyond compare ! 



35 



WESLEY EVEREST 

{Mutilated and murdered at Centralia, Washing- 
ton, November Wth, 1919, by a mob of ''respect- 
able^^ businessmen,) 



Torn and defiant as a wind-lashed reed, 
Wounded he faced you as he stood at bay ; 
You dared not lynch him in the light of day, 
But on your dungeon stones you let him 

bleed ; 
Night came . . . and you black vigilants of 

Greed . . . 
Like human wolves, seized hard upon your 

prey. 
Tortured and killed . . . and, silent slunk 

away 
Without one qualm of horror at the deed. 

Once . . . long ago ... do you remember 

how 
You hailed Him king for soldiers to deride — 
You placed a scroll above His bleeding brow 
And spat upon Him, scourged Him, cruci- 
fied ... ? 
A rebel unto Caesar — then as now 
Alone, thorn-crowned, a spear wound in his 
side! 



36 



THE INDUSTRIAL HERETICS 



They say we are revolters — ^that we stirred 
The workers of all nations to rebel — 
And that we would not compromise with Hell, 
But damned it with our every deed and word. 
They feared us as we faced them undeterred, 
And gave us each a coffin of a cell 
In this steel cave where living corpses dwell — 
Hate-throttled here that we might not be 
heard. 

We are those fools too stubborn-willed to 

bend 
Our necks to Wrong and parley and discuss. 
Today we face the awful test of fire — 
The prison, gallows, cross — ^but in the end 
Your sons will call your children after us 
And name their dogs from men you now ad- 
mire! 



37 



BLOOD AND WINE 

A certain little renegade of the Revolution chants a 
hymn of praise to his erstwhile enemy. 



Behold ! The helots of the land 
Are cowed beneath thy iron fist ; 

They are too dumb to understand — 
Too tame and spineless to resist. 

Victorious one ! Against thy gains 
These chattels cannot, dare not rise ; 

Stifle the thought within their brains 
And rule . . . with bayonets and lies. 

So may thy sons, with greed uncurbed, 
Their children's children rule again; 

Aye, rule with iron, undisturbed. 
The all-prolific sons of men. 

What matters that ten million died 
To give thy lust a dwelling place? 

Does not thy Terror set aside 
The ancient freedom of the race? 

What matters that the peasant's plow 
Bites at a soil baptised with red? 

Are not thy bloody dollars now 

More myriad than the myriad dead? 

That in charred cities, wan with pain, 

War-desolated mothers live, 
While lips of babies tug in vain 

At breasts that have no milk to give? 



Or that beneath thy battered walls, 
Cursed with the eloquence of hell, 

Black Want to red Rebellion calls . . . ? 
Heed not, I tell thee all is well! 

Heed not! Have vine-clad maidens sing 
And serve thee scented wine and gore; 

Laugh ! Glut thyself to vomiting, 

And hiccough, screaming still for more. 

What of the Men against the gate. 

Black-massed and sullen, gaunt and 
lean . . . 

Like thee they crave one thing to hate. 
Be glad . . . and whet thy guillotine! 



89 



THE RED GUARD 



Sons of the dawn! No more shall you en- 
slave 
Nor lull them with your honied lies to sleep, 
Nor lead them on like herds of human sheep, 
To hopeless slaughter for the loot you crave. 
For now upon you, wave on mighty wave, 
The iron-stern battalions rise and leap 
To extirpate your breed and bury deep 
And sow with salt the unlamented grave! 

Accursed Monster — nightmare of the 

years — 
Pause but a moment ere you pass away! 
Pause and behold the earth made clean and 

pure — 
Our earth, that you have drenched with 

blood and tears — 
Then greet the crimson usurer of Day, — 
The mighty Proletarian Dictature! 



40 



THE RED FEAST 



Go fight, you fools ! Tear up the earth with 

strife 

And spill each others guts upon the field; 

Serve unto death the men you served in life 

So that their wide dominions may not 

yield. 

Stand by the flag — the lie that still allures; 

Lay down your lives for land you do not 
own, 
And give unto a war that is not yours 

Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone. 

But whether it be yours to fall or kill 
You must not pause to question why nor 
where. 

You see the tiny crosses on that hill? 
It took all those to make one millionaire. 

It was for him the seas of blood were shed, 
That fields were razed and cities lit the sky ; 

And now he comes to chortle o'er the dead — 
The condor Thing for whom the millions 
die! 

The bugle screams, the cannons cease to 
roar. 
"Enough! enough! God give us peace 
again." 
The rats, the maggots and the Lords of War 
Are fat to bursting from their meal of 
men. 



41 



So stagger back, you stupid dupes who've 
*Von," 

Back to your stricken towns to toil anew^ 
For there your dismal tasks are still undone 

And grim Starvation gropes again for you* 

What matters now your flag, your race, the 

skill 

Of scattered legions — ^what has been the 

gain? 

Once more beneath the lash you must distil 

Your lives to glut a glory wrought of pain. 

In peace they starve you to your loathsome 

toil, 
In war they drive you to the teeth of 

Death ; 
And when your life-blood soaks into their 

soil 
They give you lies to choke your dying 

breath. 

So will they smite your blind eyes till you 
see. 
And lash your naked backs until you know 
That wasted blood can never set you free 
From fettered thraldom to the Common 
Foe. 

Then you will find that "nation" is a name 
And boundaries are things that don't 
exist ; 
That Labor's bondage, worldwide, is the 
same. 
And ONE the enemy it must resist. 

Montreal, 1914. 
42 



THE GIRLS WHO SANG FOR US 



What does it mean to us that Spring is here? 
We asked ourselves within the great grey 

hall. 
We shall not feel the magic of her call ; 
This day, like others, will be dull and drear* 
And then you sang . . . and brought so very 

near. 
The fragrant world beyond the prison wall, 
The tender fields, the trees and grass, and all 
The hopes and dreams that every man holds 

dear. 

O, silvery voices, sweet with life and youth 
Brushing our grey lives with your rainbow 

wings — 
Lives that were stem and bitter with old 

wrong. 
And cleansing them with beauty and with 

truth ; 
Reviving memories of vanished springs — 
Making us whole with miracles of song I 



43 



TO EDITH 



Do you remember how we walked that night 

In early spring? 

And how we found a new and sweet delight 

In everything ? 

Do you remember how the air was filled 

With mist and moonlight — how our hearts 

were thrilled — 
And seemed to sing? 

What if these walls shut out the world for 

me 
And heaven too, 

There still lives fragrant in my memory 
The thought of you. 
And out there now with life's high dome 

above you 
If you but knew how very much I love you — 
If you but knew .... 



44 



SONG OF SEPARATION 



Two that I love must live alone, 

Far away. 
All in the world I can call my own, 

Only they. 
Mother and boy in the rocking chair. 
Thinking of one who cannot be there. 
Breathing a hope that is half a prayer; 

Night and day, night and day. 

Here in my cell I must sit alone. 

Clothed in grey. 
Bars of iron and walls of stone 

Bid me stay. 
What of the world with its pomp and showT 
Baubles of nothing ! This I know : 
Deep in my heart I miss them so 

Night and day, night and day. 



45 



TO MY LITTLE SON 



I cannot lose the thought of you 
It haunts me Uke a httle song, 

It blends with all I see or do 
Each day, the whole day long. 

The train, the lights, the engine's throb, 
And that one stinging memory: 

Your brave smile broken with a sob, 
Your face pressed close to me. 

Lips trembling far too much to speak ; 

The arms that would not come undone ; 
The kiss so salty on your cheek; 

The long, long trip begun* 

I could not miss you more it seemed, 
But now I don't know what to say. 

It's harder than I ever dreamed 
With you so far away. 



46 



ESCAPED! 

{The boiler house whistle is blown ''wildcat' when 
a prisoner makes a '^getaway^^) 



A man has fled. . . . ! We clutch the bars 

and wait; 
The corridors are empty, tense and still; 
A silver mist has dimmed the distant hill ; 
The guards have gathered at the prison gate. 
Then suddenly the "wildcat" blares its hate 
Like some mad Moloch screaming for the kill, 
Shattering the air with terror loud and shrill, 
The dim, grey walls become articulate. 

Freedom, you say? Behold her altar here! 
In those far cities men can only find 
A vaster prison and a redder hell. 
Overshadowed by new wings of greater fear. 
Brave fool, for such a world to leave behind 
The iron sanctuary of a cell ! 



47 



RETROSPECT 



The wall-girt distance undulates with heat; 
The buildings crouch in terror of the sun ; 
Steel bars and stones, heat-tortured ton on 

ton, 
On which the noon's remorseless hammers 

beat. 
Alone I trudge the wide red-cobbled street : 
How long before this evil dream is 

done . . .? 
These strange mad stones I know them every 

one, 
Worn with the tread of oh, how many feet! 

And yet it seems that I have seen it all 
Before ... I know not when . . . but 

there should be 
Blunt buildings near a cliff, as I recall ; 
Bare rocks — sl burning white — a gnarled 

dark tree . . . 
And looming clear above a sentried wall 
The foam-laced splendor of a warm blue 

sea ... 



48 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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